그레엄 그린과 아이리스 머독: 인간을 위한 율법

Abstract

Graham Greene and Iris Murdoch are contemporary British novelists whose religious attitudes are different. Greene is a Catholic widely known as what is called a Catholic writer, and Murdoch is an atheist interested in religious ideas and practices as a moral philosopher. Greene and Murdoch, in their respective novel The Power and Glory and The Bell, assume a critical attitude to the law-abiding Christians, exposing their lack of human understanding and love. The two novelists who criticise the law-abiding pious remind us of Christ who blamed the Pharisees for adhering to the law. Christ proclaimed man was prior to the law, by saying “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” Greene and Murdoch show in their novels that the law is made for man. They hope Christians become free from the law which hinders them from understanding and loving others. Now that Greene inside the pale of the Church and Murdoch outside it deal with the same theme about Christianity in their novels in the post-Christianity era, their efforts probably help evoke interest in the Christian theme.